Plans for Goodwill in Brentwood torpedoed after neighborhood uproar over traffic, homeless and felons

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A pair of shoppers head out of the Goodwill in Brentwood, Calif. on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010. Goodwill Industries of the Greater East Bay opened the East Contra Costa County store in 2010. (Sherry LaVars/Staff)

BRENTWOOD — The Planning Commission has denied Goodwill’s application for a retail and training center in southeast Brentwood despite redesigns, analysis and approval from the city Planning Department.

The plans were at the center of a firestorm of controversy with residents concerned it would bring traffic, felons and a change to the neighborhood.

Planning Commissioners voted 4 to 1, with vice chair Dirk Zeigler against, to deny Goodwill’s application to build a 25,475-square-foot building with a parking lot on an empty lot on the southwest corner of the Balfour Road and Brentwood Boulevard intersection near the railroad.

In a number of meetings and in an online petition on Change.org, which has more than 2,000 signatures, residents cited traffic concerns and the fact the city has another Goodwill in the northwest corner of Brentwood.

“If we really want to shop these places then we can drive to them,” wrote resident Karen Franklin, who said she signed the petition because the Goodwill would bring too much traffic to the area.

The land between Armstrong Road, Balfour Road and Brentwood Boulevard was zoned commercial over a decade ago as part of a mixed-use residential and commercial project. The residents moved in, but the commercial lot was never developed.

John Fink, chair of the Planning Commission, called these in-fill developments a “relic of the recession,” where decades later, plans come forth for development of a commercial site and the residents now living there oppose it.

“If they had all come in together, it would have been more harmonious and everyone would have understood the traffic patterns, but since the two were apart from each other, neighborhoods developed a different environment without that commercial property,” Fink said.

Goodwill worked with city staff for more than a year on the project and the plans were proposed to the Planning Board in February, but fierce opposition from residents prompted the commission to recommend Goodwill work with city staff to mitigate any traffic concerns.

Designs were reconfigured to create an entrance on Armstrong Way to allow traffic to enter and exit Goodwill without going through the neighborhood.

After an analysis of the traffic patterns, city staff found that not only would the plan not have a significant traffic impact, it would also increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety in the neighborhood by creating a sidewalk.

“Goodwill creates the second least traffic impact among all approved uses of this land. Let’s be honest, it’s not a traffic issue; it’s an empty field versus retail building on vacant land issue,” Jim Caponigro, president and CEO of Goodwill of the Greater East Bay, said.

Caponigro said only one truck, the size of a U-Haul, would drop off or pick up items once a day, or less. City staff approved the project as consistent with its planning guidelines and recommended the Planning Commission approve the design review, a first step in the development process. Yet residents did not believe the city’s data.

“I would challenge the traffic data. I have no idea how you came up with that number when you have multiple aspects,” resident Theresa Trujillo said at the Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday.

Trujillo went on to say that she didn’t want felons in her neighborhood and wasn’t alone in her concerns.

Emails to city staff, and included in the agenda packet on April 3, cite residents’ concerns of an anticipated influx of homeless, felons, dumping and declining property values.

Cathy Daniel cited visiting a Salvation Army in Concord for functions and needing to “make sure the doors are locked, the gates are locked and all valuables removed from cars. There are all sorts of nefarious people there.”

“If Goodwill hires ex-convicts and sex offenders, this would not be safe for our children,” read one email from “a very concerned citizen” to city staff.

Dirk Zeigler, vice chair of the commission and the lone vote against denying the project, argued that the Planning Commission’s job was only to determine whether the plans and designs were appropriate and couldn’t decide which business goes on the site.

The project would still have needed approval from the City Council to go forward.

Fink said in the meeting on Tuesday that he couldn’t see the plans “working harmoniously in the neighborhood like we discussed,” and later clarified in an interview that he did not vote based on residents’ concerns with Goodwill itself, but would rather err on the side of caution in denying the application.

“We’ve been fortunate in the past. When city staff, commission, citizens and applicants are all on the same page, we have successful projects,” Fink said. “When it’s not… this is probably the furthest apart all of the four entities have been since we thought Walmart was coming to Brentwood.”

Goodwill had not appealed the decision as of Friday,, but still has until April 27 to appeal and bring the matter before the City Council.

Aaron Davis reports on East Contra Costa County for the East Bay Times. He has worked for papers throughout the Seacoast of New Hampshire, as well as in Queens, New York and in Amarillo, Texas. Send tips to 408-859-5105 or to aarondavis@bayareanewsgroup.com.

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